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Rubbish experience. Anecdotally, bus driver behaviour seems to have become worse again after improving steadily for years when Livingstone invested heavily in bus driver training and increased pay standards.
Do you mean he first passes you on the bridge where the concrete barriers are? I can't see a junction with such barriers nearby. These were undoubtedly not installed because of fear of terrorism but out of a general fear of drivers veering off the carriageway. With most older bridges, the parapet structures are not strong enough to withstand all vehicular impacts, and rebuilding the bridge is obviously a lot more expensive than putting some barriers down.
It's a really problematic layout at this point, and I would seriously question the wisdom of putting it in. The reason why the southbound lane is so narrow is obviously because the northbound direction includes a bus lane, a general traffic lane, and a right-turn lane which starts ridiculously early. This will have been put in because the right turn into the business park further up used to cause very long queues at certain times of day, but it leaves the layout totally inflexible. I think it's far too long and should definitely not be present across the bridge. I imagine that it leads to a lot of driver intimidation of cyclists going southbound.
The best solution here would be to close the Lombard Road junction completely, even though that would, of course, cause problems with the driving arrangements inside the business park. However, it would be much easier to install a long right-turn lane in the wider section of the A24 leading up to the junction with Jubilee Way. A less effective, but more politically acceptable, thing to do would be to un-stagger the A24/Nursery Road/Lombard Road junction, which would make it possible to shorten the right-turn lane.
None of that helps you, but it's basically this narrow-minded approach to street design that caused the incident here, near the tip of an iceberg of other problems with it.
Oliver Schick-
Rubbish experience. Anecdotally, bus driver behaviour seems to have become worse again after improving steadily for years when Livingstone invested heavily in bus driver training and increased pay standards.
On that note, more commuting cyclists should visit the Bus Cafe at Waterloo Bus Depot on Cornwall Road.
It's dead cheap (a "small breakfast" is under £4 and won't fit on a plate), the food is nice, and they have cycle parking - just push your bike aong the footpath a short way past the cafe and there are some wheel-bender stands.
inappropriate_bike
So i was riding along at past 1am and decided it was safe enough to risk the dual carriageway road over the tram line (which used to be my direct route home before i got pasted by a van a few years back now i take a 10 minute detour usually)
so as i am level with the concrete bollards on my left here (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4085749,-0.1922428,3a,75y,172.32h,52.28t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqlf1-FuK5ebRr-Z5qtFFfg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 ) a bus zooms past and squeezes me (given there's literally no space for overtaking)
I catch up to the bus on morden high street and as I pass I shout 'nice close pass dickhead' and carry on. I hit the next set of lights and turn left (not a road most buses take) when I hear a roaring engine behind me just as I swing right into the residential street off the main road and the bus screeches past having tried to catch me up
the the driver shouts out the window 'fucking wanker'
so let's tot up the infractions.
we cross paths at a single lane narrow junction where he nearly smashes me into a concrete bollard (anti terrorism concrete to stop cars going on the tram tracks below)
he then stops on the high street, I pass and shout a single phrase at him (nice close pass dickhead)
he rapidly accelerates, turns off the main road and chases me down a side road and (already has the window open) to shout at me "fucking wanker" when literally the only thing instigated by me was calling him a dickhead while he was dropping passengers off .
luckily I was able to gain the upper hand and shout "nice dead end job while everyone else is asleep you loser cunt" as he (very closely) sailed past the back of my bike as I veered into the side street.